Argentina in the raw

Gauchos keep a watchful eye on their flock of sheep high in the Andes. Photo: AFP

Matthew Cranston

Horsing around

In San Carlos de Bariloche, dozens of companies offer horseriding excursions but one standout is Complejo Los Baqueanos. The base is in the Nahuel Huapi National Park. Red wine and goulash by the fire place is served after an adventurous ride above Lake Gutierruz. Day trips around $70. info@complejobaqueanos.com.ar

Cantering on Criollo horses high in the Patagonian Andes, my French-Argentine guide suddenly diverts in a different direction to me. Riding too fast to suddenly stop and follow her, I take a chance and scramble through the overgrown path I am already on.

A few minutes later, I have ended up well in front of the guide in a large field with spectacular views of the snow-capped peaks. She finally catches up and asks good humouredly: “You want to be the guide instead?”

We both laugh but I decide to stay at the back of the pack and take my time to appreciate the great wilderness of Argentina. I am here because of an agricultural journalism award and will be sampling the country’s fine produce and studying its agricultural economy.

Famed for its prime beef and Malbec wines, Argentina shares much in common with Australia. In the 1920s, both countries shared the same sized economies but, since then, Australia has drawn ahead.

Quietly walking the horse, I think about the two countries and how their economies have diverged so dramatically from each other.

Just as my guide and I had taken different routes leaving me to take the harder path and come out in front, so too it has been the same for Australia.

Dozens of economists have analysed the difference between the two countries, but most conclude that Argentina’s politically enforced industrialisation at the expense of primary production has been the key factor in its struggle.

On a tour of a ranch north-west of Buenos Aires, which I thoroughly recommend, I get to see real gauchos – Argentine cowboys – in action. They are pushing a mob of cattle through the Paraná River to the other side.

The gauchos, who swim with their horses, call and whistle out loudly to keep the swimming cattle alert and focused on getting through the deep water.

Rustic-looking and heavily tanned, the gauchos like to put on a performance. Once they surface on the other side of the river they turn and bow to the onlookers who are sitting in boats, taking photos and applauding.

Back at the ranch the gauchos ride wild horses for fun and fall off them with the alacrity of a cat jumping from a garden wall, their floppy berets still secure on their heads.

Later, the head gaucho takes a large knife and, jostling around billowing smoke, chops at a giant piece of beef that has been sitting on old bedsprings white hot from the fiery coals underneath.

The scent and the taste of the beef, cooked ‘Asado’ style, is crucial to the bucolic experience. After all this colourful fanfare, I start to realise how much it is a desperate source of income for farmers who are enduring government-imposed taxes on their export produce of more than 30 per cent.

At a dinner sponsored by British American Tobacco, I speak to the former Argentine ambassador to the European Union Gustavo Idigoras.

Why is the tax on raw agricultural exports so high? He says it “increases the chance to industrialise it and to export processed product to the world”.

The tax brings in more than $15 billion in revenues and, while he says there is no specific policy to allocate revenues from the tax, there are strong hints at the table that the revenue is channelled into parts of the economy which employ more people, such as car manufacturing.

Regardless of whether the car industry is viable, the revenue transferred into that industry helps employment and one could argue attracts political support from unions and the infamous “piqueteros”.

Despite my third glass of Malbec, I recollect that the Ford Motoring Company had sponsored the big farm event of the day. Vehicles were on display at the farm and svelte Argentine women were inviting people for a drive.

It was all a stunning contrast to what has just happened in Australia, where the federal government has steered away from providing more subsidies for car manufacturers, many of which have now shut down.

With the redistribution policies of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner it’s hard to see more time and money being directed to Argentina’s better attributes of agriculture and tourism.

Its exquisite old European architecture and its epic and diverse terrains need more care and attention.

In Buenos Aires, known as the Paris of the South, I stay in the grand old Savoy, which is a rare piece of preserved heritage.

Several of the beautiful buildings in the city centre are in disrepair, suffering fire damage or diminished by some horrid, rusty square box that a property developer has managed to slot in beside it.

I am fortunate that I can escape the central part of the city and visit cousins in the city’s north – suburbs such as the leafy San Isidro, Martinez, Olivos and, just up from the famous Campo Argentino de Polo, the bustling Belgrano.

This is where the real colour of Buenos Aires is hidden from conventional tourists.

Further afield I head to the first Trappist monastery in South America outside Azul and the ski fields in San Carlos de Bariloche. All are great tourist destinations with incredible friendly people but the rubbish that litters the areas and roads is so noticeable it can detract from the splendour.

Before I head home, I sit down to dinner with my cousins and listen to stories of how difficult investing money is in Argentina. Their $500,000 house had to be purchased with cash – each serial number of the note written down on a piece of paper. Guards are in booths at the end of every street in their neighbourhood checking to make sure the wealthy houses don’t get robbed.

It is a frightening reality which makes me think just how lucky we are in Australia. It seems taking the high road or the path less travelled was certainly the better way to go.